Avengers: Infinity Wars

Avengers: Infinity Wars is the movie that all Marvel films have been leading up to, and the film that all Marvel fans were left in shock after seeing. The Avengers team up once again against Thanos who is on his mission of collecting all six Infinity Stones. The movie begins with him having one stone already in his possession, and then we follow him as he collects all the others, one by one.

I know what you're thinking. OMG Hayley, we've been waiting for this review. The movie has been out for weeks! All I can say is, I'm sorry, but if you people would have let me get a movie ticket before they were all sold out, you wouldn't have had to wait! MoviePass doesn't let me buy early remember?! But anyway, let's continue with the important information here...I absolutely loved this movie. I do not profess to be a huge comic book nerd, or a huge Marvel follower, but I know enough and I've seen enough Marvel films to follow the story line. I know we've seen Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy previously and that he collected his first stone from Zandar right before we see the Guardians for the first time. Ever since then we have been waiting for him to continue on his mission, and we were not let down by his path to destruction.

Now, I do not want to give too much away in case there are readers who have not yet seen the movie, but I will say that there will be a sequel to Infinity Wars. The sequel is set to be released next year. The reason for this is quite clear if you've seen the film. Basically, Thanos is not dead, some Avengers are, and the remaining Avengers need to stop him. There are some clues as to how he will be stopped, but if this film has shown us anything it's that Marvel has a few tricks up their sleeves.

This movie is big on battles, and small on plot construction, but this didn't bother me. All previous Marvel films have given us the plot we needed, and now it came down to stopping the threat. We jump around from group to group a few times: Iron Man is with Dr. Strange and Spidey, Thor is with Rocket and Groot,  Captain America is with Black Panther and Vision, etc. There's a lot of super heroes in this and I won't name them all. Each group faces their own challenges here and I felt like Marvel did a great job of jumping from one to another. In this 2 hour and 40 minute movie, I never once felt like it was boring or dragging. I was entranced with the battles and hoping against all hope that the Avengers would come out on top, as all super hero movies normally do. Marvel took me on a thrill ride, and left me in stunned amazement.

Avengers: Infinity Wars has an 8.9/10 on iMDB and a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes for an audience score, and I have to agree with those ratings. I would see this movie again and again even though I was slightly heartbroken in the end. I know that Marvel will make it up to me though...or they'll get a nasty email about how they've ruined my young life!

There is a cut scene at the very end of the credits and I had to have a friend explain it to me (thank you kind soul, you know who you are). We see Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who is the person responsible for creating the Avengers in the beginning, and he sends out an SOS to someone we have never met before. To me, the SOS to this shape below, wasn't helpful:

Apparently, this is the symbol for Captain Marvel. I kid you not...Marvel studios has a Captain Marvel...and it's a woman. So let's just say a woman will save the day...as we always do...muah. You're welcome.

Life of the Party

Life of the Party is Melissa McCarthy's newest comedy about a woman that decides to go back to college to finish her degree following a divorce from her husband. Her daughter is also finishing her final year of college, and is shocked to hear that she will now be graduating with her mother.

I have always been a fan of Melissa McCarthy's movies. She has had her ups and downs for sure, and I do not believe that this was one of her bests, but it definitely wasn't her worst either. There are some very funny moments in this film. One that I got a kick out of is her daughter's reaction to hearing that her mom is going to graduate alongside her. Molly Gordon who plays McCarthy's daughter has the perfect reaction of shock and horror. I thought it was hilarious.

This is not a laugh out loud for two straight hours movie. There was really only one scene where I really laughed near the point of tears, but I did catch all the smaller ha-ha moments. Reviewers on IMDb are saying that this is hard to watch and that it's not at all funny. I honestly don't know what they were watching, or maybe they missed the small jokes. Life of the Party has a 5.1/10 right now on IMDb. It just came out this week, so that rating could change and I think it should go up by a bit. Maybe a 6/10 tops. I'd go again just to see the one really funny moment. McCarthy and Maya Rudolph are perfect together. They play best friends in the film and every scene with the two of them together was fantastic.

The best part of the film was watching Gordon's character go from the OMG-my-mom-is-at-my-college-and-is-an-embarrassment kid, to the OMG-my-mom-is-an-amazing-woman-that-deserves-to-be-happy kid. The relationship between them goes from the regular mom and daughter relationship to an even better relationship where Gordon realizes how strong her mom really is. Every woman deserves an education and she deserves to do what makes her happy. McCarthy's character never finished college because she got pregnant and her husband decided that his education was more important than hers. It's sad that any woman would have to leave school for that reason, but it happens all the time, and this movie shows that it is possible to go back. Even if it means embarrassing your daughter for a few weeks. :)